The Miraculous Mandarin
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Thursday 19 December 2019 7.30–9.30pm Barbican LSO SEASON CONCERT THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN Sophya Polevaya Spellbound Tableaux (world premiere)* BARTÓK Elgar Cello Concerto Interval Bartók The Miraculous Mandarin François-Xavier Roth conductor Alisa Weilerstein cello London Symphony Chorus Simon Halsey chorus director *Commissioned through the Panufnik Composers Scheme, generously supported by Lady Hamlyn and The Helen Hamlyn Trust Welcome Latest News On Our Blog Tonight’s programme concludes with LSO PANUFNIK COMPOSERS SCHEME: LSO DISCOVERY SINGING DAY: Bartók’s pantomime ballet The Miraculous APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES Mandarin, which was also written 100 years ago, for which we are joined on stage by the Applications for the 2020/21 LSO Panufnik ‘Writing Christ on the Mount of Olives, London Symphony Chorus. Most frequently Composers Scheme are now open. Generously Beethoven laid the groundwork for oratorios performed as a concert suite during Bartók’s supported by Lady Hamlyn and The Helen by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Berlioz, and lifetime, preserving just two-thirds of the Hamlyn Trust, each year the scheme offers Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas!’, explains original music, we are delighted tonight to six emerging composers the opportunity to Choral Director Simon Halsey. Read about perform this work in full. The performance write for the Orchestra, guided by composers our most recent Singing Day and discover will also be recorded for LSO Live. Colin Matthews and Christian Mason. more about Beethoven’s only oratorio ahead of two performances in the New Year. warm welcome to this evening’s I wish you a very happy festive season, and • lso.co.uk/more/news LSO concert at the Barbican, hope you are able to join us again in the New ELGAR’S CELLO CONCERTO: conducted by Principal Guest Year. The LSO’s 2019/20 concert season at 100-YEAR ANNIVERSARY Conductor François-Xavier Roth. We are the Barbican continues on 9 January with joined tonight by soloist Alisa Weilerstein, Nathalie Stutzmann conducting Brahms’ WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUP On 27 October 1919, the LSO performed the who made her LSO debut with Elgar’s Symphony No 1. Throughout January and world premiere of one of the most popular Cello Concerto in 2016. It is a pleasure to February, Sir Simon Rattle celebrates Olga Polevaya & Friends works in the repertoire: Elgar’s Cello Concerto. welcome her back to the LSO to perform this the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's One hundred years later, we take a look at much-loved piece, 100 years after its world birth with the composer’s Seventh and the history of this piece, its current popularity, premiere with the Orchestra, and we look Ninth Symphonies, and eagerly awaited and how this wasn’t always the case … forward to her joining us again for concerts performances of the rarely heard oratorio in Paris and Lyon in March. Christ on the Mount of Olives. • • lso.co.uk/more/blog The concert begins with a new work by composer Sophya Polevaya, Spellbound Tableaux, commissioned as part of the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme. We extend our thanks to Lady Hamlyn and The Helen Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Please ensure all phones are switched off. Hamlyn Trust for their generous support Managing Director Photography and audio/video recording of the scheme, which has supported some are not permitted during the performance. 90 composers since its launch in 2005. 2 Welcome 19 December 2019 Tonight’s Concert In Brief Coming Up onight’s concert opens with the and is provocative, intense, and at moments Friday 3 January 1pm Sunday 19 January 10am–5pm world premiere of Spellbound brutal. Bartók mirrors this in the music, with LSO St Luke’s Barbican & LSO St Luke’s Tableaux, a new work by composer dream-like sequences interspersed with Sophya Polevaya, inspired by the 1945 Alfred frantic moments reminiscent of Stravinsky’s BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERT LSO DISCOVERY Hitchcock film Spellbound. As a homage to The Rite of Spring. • BACH UP CLOSE DISCOVERY DAY: BEETHOVEN Hitchcock's combination of classic Hollywood allure with surrealist art, suspense and the PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS J S Bach Sonatas for violin and harpsichord Attend a morning LSO rehearsal conducted pseudo-cryptic, the Tableaux incorporate No 4 in C minor; No 1 in B minor; by Sir Simon Rattle, followed by a talk and musical cryptograms into five scenes. Jo Kirkbride is Head of Artistic Planning No 6 in G major chamber music at LSO St Luke’s. at the Dunedin Consort. She is an external Elgar’s Cello Concerto follows, premiered by assessor for Creative Scotland's Open Project Alina Ibragimova violin Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican the LSO in October 1919 with the composer Funding strand and sits on the Board of Carole Cerasi harpsichord himself conducting. The piece has overcome Directors for New Music Scotland. Sunday 19 January 7pm initial mixed reviews to become a stalwart Recorded for future broadcast by BBC Radio 3 Barbican of the solo repertoire for cellists. The lyrical Lewis Foreman works as a repertoire first movement opens boldly from the consultant for various record companies, Thursday 9 January 7.30pm CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES soloist, who later takes over a flowing theme and has written books on, among others, Barbican first heard in the violas. This is contrasted Grainger, Rubbra and Vaughan Williams, Berg Violin Concerto with a scherzo second movement propelled by as well as a biography of Sir Arnold Bax. MENDELSSOHN VIOLIN CONCERTO Beethoven Christ on the Mount of Olives the soloist. Passionate and singing solo lines soar over a pared-back orchestra in the third Andrew Stewart is a freelance music journalist Wagner Overture and Venusburg Sir Simon Rattle conductor movement, which leads to an expansive and writer. He is the author of The LSO at 90, Music from ‘Tannhäuser’ Lisa Batiashvili violin finale, tinged with heartbreaking interjections and contributes to a wide variety of specialist Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Elsa Dreisig soprano from the cello throughout. classical music publications. Brahms Symphony No 1 Pavol Breslik tenor David Soar bass Bartók’s pantomime ballet, The Miraculous Jan Smaczny is the Sir Hamilton Harty Nathalie Stutzmann conductor London Symphony Chorus Mandarin, completes tonight’s concert. Professor of Music at Queen’s University, Alina Ibragimova violin Simon Halsey chorus director First performed in 1926 – and subsequently Belfast. A well-known writer and broadcaster, banned the day after its premiere – the he specialises in the life and works of Dvořák 6pm Barbican: Free pre-concert recital Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican story at the heart of this work originated in and in Czech opera, and has published books LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists a ‘grotesque pantomime’ by the Hungarian on the repertoire of the Prague Provisional playwright Menyhért (Melchior) Lengyel, Theatre and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. Recommended by Classic FM Tonight’s Concert 3 Sophya Polevaya Spellbound Tableaux 2019 / note by Jo Kirkbride LSO DISCOVERY: NEW MUSIC Saturday 15 February 7pm 1 Lovers’ Knot that distinguishes it from monumental art’, of intensity, ‘a polarity of lyricism and LSO St Luke’s 2 Hitchcock Cameo: A Recitative Polevaya explains, ‘an acute conciseness and aggression’ that signifies the complexity of 3 Dream Burlesque a display of considerable detail in a small J.B.’s difficult character. But this aggression SOUNDHUB SHOWCASE: PHASE II 4 Interlude space. It was an interesting idea to apply to is swapped for desolation in the ‘Memento 5 Memento Mori the orchestral medium, which is in effect a Mori’ that follows, gravitating to the theme Alex Ho and Sun Keting, composers on paradox to it, a medium of epic proportions.’ of death with a rendition of the Dies Irae Phase II of LSO Discovery’s Soundhub ased on Alfred Hitchcock’s chant as its backdrop. In the end, it is this scheme, showcase new music, joined by 1945 filmSpellbound , Sophya At the smallest scale, Polevaya structures fragility, always teetering on the brink of the LSO musicians. Polevaya’s score takes as its muse the work around a series of cryptograms, abyss, that sees the work out – not with a this fantastical film and abstracts it still rendering the names of the film’s main flurry but with a slow, inexorable ebb. • LSO Soundhub is generously supported by further. It is not, as she tells us, ‘a retelling characters into a series of musical motifs Susie Thomson of the same story scene by scene, nor a (‘some are more leitmotivic/declamatory; replacement underscore to a particular others discreet, a personal token’). In the Thursday 26 March 10am–1.30pm frame’. Rather, it is an impression or opening scene we meet the central character, LSO St Luke’s 2.30–6pm abstraction of the idea itself. Left open as J.B., his motif being the first two pitches. musical snapshots, the five intense scenes But as the texture begins to swell into a PANUFNIK COMPOSERS of Spellbound Tableaux capture Hitchcock’s chamber-like ensemble, this extends into WORKSHOP drama from several, seemingly disparate a cryptogram of his full name – John Brown angles. Gone is any traditional, teleological – which is joined at the end of the movement Eight composers hear their new work narrative, and in its place she offers the by a cryptogram of Constance, his lover. The rehearsed by the LSO and François-Xavier listeners a more complex, multi-dimensional two become coiled together, creating the Roth, with mentors Colin Matthews and object, one that can be viewed (or heard) lovers’ knot of the scene’s title. Christian Mason. from any number of directions. Only at the end are we able to zoom out, to piece The second and third movements – a François-Xavier Roth conductor together the puzzle, and to understand the recitative and a burlesque – together present work as a cohesive whole.